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But the external preamps are mostly useful for long cable throws unless you can really bypass the build-in preamplifier. That said, the TritonAudio seems not to be designed for portable operation. These preamplifiers are meant mostly for dynamic microphones.

I would try updating two elements:

First, the microphone. Still within a reasonable budget Sennheiser offers the ME66 or ME67 shotguns with a much higher sensitivity and a lower noise floor.

Second, the recorder. Sound Devices and Zoom have released recorders with much better noise floors at reasonable prices. Look at the Sound Devices MixPres (3/6/10) and Zoom F4/F8.

A good portable preamplifier (like the MP-1 from Sound Devices) will surely help but it's 550€ and it's only one channel. A MixPre 3 will give you three microphone preamplifiers better performance.

And still if you want to record distant birds with good quality you will need a parabolic reflector.

Last edited by Borjam : Tuesday 8th January 2019 at 14:04.
Reason: ortography!

Hi Borjam, thanks for your detailed reply. I'm sure your suggestions will help getting better sound quality with less noise.. but I have no idea how much better in comparison to my setup, which is about half the price.

This afternoon I'll go to Treppendorf/Germany (largest audio store in europe) for an equipment demonstration and hope to be able to try out my stuff and the gear you recommended in side-by-side comparison. My idea is to place my smartphone / a speaker somewhere in the store playing some bird calls.

This afternoon I'll go to Treppendorf/Germany (largest audio store in europe) for an equipment demonstration and hope to be able to try out my stuff and the gear you recommended in side-by-side comparison. My idea is to place my smartphone / a speaker somewhere in the store playing some bird calls.

Sounds promising! :-)

A couple of years ago, I bought a digital recorder with built-in pre-amplifiers from that store years ago, but found that in my urban spotting locations, there was just too much background noise to sustain my enthusiasm. (I shied back from buying shotgun microphones as I thought it was a bad bet to expect them to eliminate the background noise.)

However, I was given a Cornell Raven Lite license for christmas, which I suppose must be a pretty good spectrum analysis tool, so maybe I need some fodder for that now ...

Hi Borjam, thanks for your detailed reply. I'm sure your suggestions will help getting better sound quality with less noise.. but I have no idea how much better in comparison to my setup, which is about half the price.

Difficult to say...

These recordings are made with an AKG C300B+CK98 shotgun and a Sound Devices MixPre 3.

High gain, low noise floor is nice to have in nature recording as the sound levels often are pretty low.
With the SD MixPre-3 you get +76dB of gain which is more than +10dB better than the Tascam,
that would be clearly audible when you need to turn up the gain:

High gain, low noise floor is nice to have in nature recording as the sound levels often are pretty low.
With the SD MixPre-3 you get +76dB of gain which is more than +10dB better than the Tascam,
that would be clearly audible when you need to turn up the gain:

Anyway the equivalent input noise for both (although underspecified for the Tascam) is not the same.

Tascam: -120dBu or less
Sound Devices: -128 dBu with 76 dB of gain.

That's an important difference and close to the best theoretically achievable performance.

So. Comparing both recorders at max gain, the Sound Devices will have a significant advantage.

I don't know much about Raven Lite (or other versions of Raven) but I do know that you either pay for them, or access them within time limitations. A really good alternative is Audacity, which lots of bird recorders use these days.

I think a lot of bird sound recorders can get carried away with trying to get the best equipment - but learning how to get the best out of your recordings in whatever software you use is probably more important than a few decibels here and there.

The big advantage: Working with sonograms. Not so many editors get it right I think.

iZotope's RX Elements, for example, includes a standalone audio editor that can work in spectral mode. RX Elements is on sale for $29 right now. Alternatives with spectral edition are Reaper ($60 ?) and Acoustica (acondigital.com) for much more and a sluggish spectral edition window.